IMR 4350 v. IMR 4831, 200 grain Speers, .338 WM.

[LeonardC]

I've loaded and had good results with both IMR4350 and IMR4831 shooting Speer SP 200 gr and Horn Spire Pt 225 in the .338 Win Mag. I have used IMR4831 more.

From my notes of 225 Horn SP and IMR4831: "Took cow elk Approx 200 yds. Broadside facing left-entered high left leg-no bone hit, broke rib going in-totaled both lungs-broke rib off side-broke upper leg on off side-contained w/in hide off side. Wt. 148.6 gr for 66.6% weight ret. Dia .594" for 1.76% dia expansion" She kicked off at the shot and was dead when she hit the ground. Like Thor hit her with his hammer. I was slightly above her when I shot.

For several reasons I've been buying and shooting more Horn. bullets lately and have been playing with the .375Ruger. On those mono bullets (CX) you have to watch the impact speed. Horn. says it should be at least 2000fps. The way I load for it, that would exclude a 400 yard shot. My plan is to work up a pair of loads; 250 CX up to 300 yards and 270 Interlocks for beyond 300 yards, if I can get them to print right, just in case I have to shoot that far (stopping a wounded animal from getting away.)

This is a cast boolit site! I bought a mold for the .375R and will be making lead bullets for plinking instead of buying the "cheap" jword bullets.

Good luck OP. I like the .338WM!

[Bigslug]

Bend your ears on a premium elk bullet? None are available right now but I'm on the hunt for a premium 225 grain:

Looking at:

- Nosler Partition 210,
-Nosler Accubond 225; my bent tends always to a heavier bullet, so bias towards the Accubond;
-Barnes 225 grain Tipped Triple Shock X ("TTSX"), though I prefer not to use a cannelure in my bolt action.

My father and I have killed six deer with Barnes TTSX bullets in the 130 and 168 grain .30's and the 150 grain 7mm. Four were effectively dead in their tracks or within about ten yards of impact, another made it about 30, and the last was hit somewhat badly yet was still on the ground in 50-70 and demanded a follow up when he tried to get up on my approach. I also "sponsored" a friend's hit on a VERY large Texas wild boar with the 62 grain factory TSX 5.56 NATO load to better learn the capabilities of these solid copper bullets. Generally, they're VERY accurate, penetrate VERY well, and create a lot of rapid blood loss. Somewhat expensive, but given that we practice with cast and after load development is done, only fire them to annually confirm zero and hunt, the price is acceptable for the performance.

[Ithaca Gunner]

I agree with Bigslug on the Barnes X bullets, first they aren't really that expensive, (when compared to Nosler Partitions) and secondly, I've seen them on Midway's site on and off. Their website has load info for them.

Yeah, I have to get a new Speer manual, my most current is #14. Just got the most current Nosler, need Speer and Sierra yet to bring me current for bullets I load.

Try ammoseek.com they're a free ammo and component search site. You have to register to go to a dealer site, (free) that allows you all you need to know about buying ammo or components. Once joined select ammo-reloading-magazines-guns from the menu, select bullets-brass-powder-primers, grains-brand and search. They have a shipping scale, high number good to low number poor, reviews, quanity in stock and when it was posted, etc. Don't forget Guns international, they have a catagory for bullets also.

[huntinlever]

Thanks a lot for the extensive comments, guys. Much appreciated. Like all of us I'll wait it out - thanks too for the sources unknown to me, Ithaca. Wasn't aware GI has a components section. I use shootingbot, which I like a lot too.

I do see Hornady's "Eld-X" 230's come up a lot. I'm getting a better handle on bullet design and see how important fitting the design is to the quarry (or the load, for that matter - how too much speed up close with certain bullets is a downside, for instance), but still pretty new to me given all my experience is either CB's for the GG or bought bullets intended to emulate factory cartridges (Sierra's, emulating core-lokt in the 30-30 and '06). So - thoughts on these Eld-X's? Seem some comments good and bad, and some saying fine for deer, but not tough enough to get it done on elk - too frangible.

Then you have the complete opposite comments - the bust up makes a tremendous wound channel and DRT quite often. Again I'm used to an 18-ish BHN WFNGC to plow a clean hole, not used to the expansion point of view.

Thoughts appreciated as always.

[LeonardC]

Speer data can be found on their website for many loads. 5 powders for the .338 WM 225.

[huntinlever]

Speer data can be found on their website for many loads. 5 powders for the .338 WM 225.

Thanks Leonard.

[huntinlever]

Well, so much for patience. I'll be honest I'm not much of a tinkerer - don't enjoy load development per se, just want to lock in a load for the intended purpose and then start cranking out rounds, tons of range time. That said given the plethora of choices (new to me) I'm pretty much resigned to the fact lots of experimentation is ahead, so there's no "magic bullet" for the perfect elk load on this rifle. I bought some 250 grain Barnes TSX's.

I also know this is impossible to say as each rifle is different, but Ithaca, maybe you'd have a thought as we have the same rifle, or others - how far off the lands do you go for the Barnes TSX's or TTSX's as a starting point? Or even though Barnes recommends it for their bullets, would you still not even bother until getting close on the load?

My precision mic gave a freebore of 0.030 exactly across several readings. If I'm reading them right, Barnes recommends 0.050" off the lands for a starting point, so I'd drop the bullet depth so it reads 0.080 - correct?

Edit: I'll add, Barnes's own data for the 250 TSX includes none of the slower powders in this range, e.g., no IMR or H 4831, no Rel 19 or Rel 22 (intrigued by this last one, for this heavier bullet). They do use IMR 4350/H 4350, and actually use Ramshot Hunter as well. I'd thought the slower end of the spectrum would be indicated here. In this case would you guys still recommend going with Barnes's own data, or would you recommend going with other data suggesting the slower powders?

[ebner glocken]

I'm surprised nobody has mentioned IMR 4064 or varget yet for bullets weighing 200 and less. They work very well for me and accuracy has been great in my experience. I've used these with great results with the speer 200 and barns x 185 ttsx. The ttsx will shoot ragged little one hole groups at 100 and not much bigger the further you go out.

Yes, I've used IMR 4350 and RL19 with light to heavy weight bullets with good results (bullets up to 275gr). For the lighter ones 4064 just does the same thing with less powder. As of the last year or two RL19 is almost impossible to find in my area.

Ebner

[TurnipEaterDown]

...I bought some 250 grain Barnes TSX's. ... how far off the lands do you go for the Barnes TSX's or TTSX's as a starting point? ... If I'm reading them right, Barnes recommends 0.050" off the lands for a starting point...

If a manufacturer (especially one having pressure tested loads) makes a recommendation, I would highly consider following it.

That said, yes, I recall Barnes stating 0.050" off as general guidance, and I often follow it.
I think JD Jones said that 0.050" was minimum w/ Barnes homogeneous bullets.

The reason is that you want some more momentum on the bullet as it hits the lands because, w/o the lead core, these bullets are harder to begin the engraving on and getting full cut depth of the rifling. When changing the bullet design from cup & core to homogeneous, pressure rise can be significant, most strikingly when used in something w/ lower margins of pressure tolerance.
An example of this is the JDJ "stuff" in TC Contenders. I am NOT saying he did unsafe things, just that you needed to heed his advice with his products to be safe, and part of that was giving the Barnes X more "run".
It is also a reason why Barnes began putting the "rings" in the bullet shanks. Giving displaced metal somewhere easy to go made the engraving easier. Otherwise the whole bullet shank needed to get longer in the engraving. The volume of metal does not change, and it will go down the bore.

Sometimes you can get away w/ much larger jumps to rifling than "common" and still get great accuracy. Weatherby magnums most often employ very generous freebore, and do have the ability to shoot very well, so I wouldn't get worked up about more jump to the lands.
Within reason, seating the bullet deeper in a bottleneck rifle case tends to Decrease peak pressure.


The whole firearm & cartridge is a system that has been tinkered with by engineers and their like over more than a century to better performance.
When making a significant change, like a lead core bullet to homogeneous, then other aspects of the system design need to be changed to attain best performance (speed, accuracy, etc.).
Barnes makes a well respected product. It is just different.

[Ithaca Gunner]

You're right about IMR-4064 and Varget, ebner. I haven't tried any bullet lighter than 200gr. in my rifle, (the same as the OP's, Ruger M-77 Hawkeye Predator). I have some 30rds loaded with the Speer 225gr. SBT and had planned on going to the range yesterday, but it rained in the morning turning things muddy again and was windy so I canceled it.

Paul, at this stage I simply loaded my ammo to Speer's suggested OAL. I figure I'll fine tune once I find the best shooting powder and weight for that bullet. Following the rifle's former owner's load recipe for the 200gr. Speer bullets with W-760 and Speer's OAL gave me groups of a fine hair over 1'' at 100yds. The only difference was the primer, I used WLRM where he used CCI LRM 69.2gr W-760 OAL 3.300''. I would assume this was his deer load. He had almost two full box's of factory Winchester/Nosler combined tech. 250gr ammunition he apparently used for elk and other heavy game.

This may be of interest, Paul. My oldest manual with the .338 WM in it is the Speer #6, 1963 which is the only place I've seen anything other than magnum primers listed. Apparently they only made two bullets for it, a 200gr. spitzer and a 275gr. semi spitzer. They only used CCI 250 magnum primers with H-450 powder. All IMR and other powders used call for standard CCI 200 primers. I checked Speer #10 and 13, they both suggest Magnum primers for all loads.

Alliant seems to be behind Hodgdon in production, my brother said he found Unique at a shop this past week but wasn't paying the price for it, ($57.00 I think he said). I haven't been to my local GS in a few months, and he usually stocks RE-19, but didn't have any at the time, though plenty of Hodgdon powders, (IMR-H-W) at more reasonable prices, $35.00lb average. Another potential gem in the .338 WM is W-760 which my rifle's former owner used exclusively in his loads. It seems to span the bullet weights from 180-250gr as a top velocity contender and is a powder I've stocked in 8lb units for 30+ years. Right after I bought my rifle there was a fellow set up selling off an estate with lots of powder and bullets. I was able to pick up two sealed lbs. of RE-22 and a box of .30 Nosler 180gr Ballistic Tip bullets for $80.00 OTD, (no .338 bullets).

[huntinlever]

If a manufacturer (especially one having pressure tested loads) makes a recommendation, I would highly consider following it.

That said, yes, I recall Barnes stating 0.050" off as general guidance, and I often follow it.
I think JD Jones said that 0.050" was minimum w/ Barnes homogeneous bullets.

The reason is that you want some more momentum on the bullet as it hits the lands because, w/o the lead core, these bullets are harder to begin the engraving on and getting full cut depth of the rifling. When changing the bullet design from cup & core to homogeneous, pressure rise can be significant, most strikingly when used in something w/ lower margins of pressure tolerance.
An example of this is the JDJ "stuff" in TC Contenders. I am NOT saying he did unsafe things, just that you needed to heed his advice with his products to be safe, and part of that was giving the Barnes X more "run".
It is also a reason why Barnes began putting the "rings" in the bullet shanks. Giving displaced metal somewhere easy to go made the engraving easier. Otherwise the whole bullet shank needed to get longer in the engraving. The volume of metal does not change, and it will go down the bore.

Sometimes you can get away w/ much larger jumps to rifling than "common" and still get great accuracy. Weatherby magnums most often employ very generous freebore, and do have the ability to shoot very well, so I wouldn't get worked up about more jump to the lands.
Within reason, seating the bullet deeper in a bottleneck rifle case tends to Decrease peak pressure.


The whole firearm & cartridge is a system that has been tinkered with by engineers and their like over more than a century to better performance.
When making a significant change, like a lead core bullet to homogeneous, then other aspects of the system design need to be changed to attain best performance (speed, accuracy, etc.).
Barnes makes a well respected product. It is just different.

OK, I get it. Thanks. Interesting.

So, This is regarding the Barnes 250 grain TSX's (not TTSX's, fyi). Just want to make sure I understand and am doing it right. So yes, the mic shows a consistent freebore of 0.030".

Say I want go with 0.050 off the lands. I will place the mic "bullet" into the base, assuring it's tightened enough for a good friction, then carefully screw the land nut down until the new reading is 0.025". Then make sure the screw on the "bullet" is tightened enough so there won't be any depth movement, then remove the "bullet" and with calipers measure the COAL. In my case, dropping down only 0.05," my COAL is 3.273. I see Barnes for their 250 gr TSX sets a COAL of 3.320.

Check: correct procedure? Given this possible of a "0.050" as a minimum, is 0.070- 0.100 " a more prudent move to start (pretty wild to me to see Barnes saying some go as far as 0.25" off the land!)?

[huntinlever]

I'm surprised nobody has mentioned IMR 4064 or varget yet for bullets weighing 200 and less. They work very well for me and accuracy has been great in my experience. I've used these with great results with the speer 200 and barns x 185 ttsx. The ttsx will shoot ragged little one hole groups at 100 and not much bigger the further you go out.

Yes, I've used IMR 4350 and RL19 with light to heavy weight bullets with good results (bullets up to 275gr). For the lighter ones 4064 just does the same thing with less powder. As of the last year or two RL19 is almost impossible to find in my area.

Ebner

Great note, thanks Ebner.

Just an fyi all, I did just pick up 1# Rel 22 from Brownell's. I hate paying shipping and HAZMAT so am always on the lookout locally but am always willing to do a first pound for load development.

[huntinlever]

Paul, at this stage I simply loaded my ammo to Speer's suggested OAL. I figure I'll fine tune once I find the best shooting powder and weight for that bullet. Following the rifle's former owner's load recipe for the 200gr. Speer bullets with W-760 and Speer's OAL gave me groups of a fine hair over 1'' at 100yds. The only difference was the primer, I used WLRM where he used CCI LRM 69.2gr W-760 OAL 3.300''. I would assume this was his deer load. He had almost two full box's of factory Winchester/Nosler combined tech. 250gr ammunition he apparently used for elk and other heavy game.

Thanks. I have a good store now of these 200 gr Hot Cor's, but have increased the load development to beyond Lyman's, to Speer's own data. This follows on your suggestion and others, to go with the bullet manufacturer's data itself. So I might find the accuracy is at a higher charge, and have to think about whether this matches up with deer - whether too fast too close, with this bullet, might not be a good marriage. But I'm obviously early on learning this stuff and you guys may check that as a working notion.

This may be of interest, Paul. My oldest manual with the .338 WM in it is the Speer #6, 1963 which is the only place I've seen anything other than magnum primers listed. Apparently they only made two bullets for it, a 200gr. spitzer and a 275gr. semi spitzer. They only used CCI 250 magnum primers with H-450 powder. All IMR and other powders used call for standard CCI 200 primers. I checked Speer #10 and 13, they both suggest Magnum primers for all loads.

That's interesting. I've been reading so much I can't recall where I'm seeing stuff without going back through history, but I recall a guy who likes really slow powders for his heavy bullets and also, uses only standard primers. I think it was Federal 210. I could be remembering incorrectly, but I started to understand the thinking.

Alliant seems to be behind Hodgdon in production, my brother said he found Unique at a shop this past week but wasn't paying the price for it, ($57.00 I think he said). I haven't been to my local GS in a few months, and he usually stocks RE-19, but didn't have any at the time, though plenty of Hodgdon powders, (IMR-H-W) at more reasonable prices, $35.00lb average. Another potential gem in the .338 WM is W-760 which my rifle's former owner used exclusively in his loads. It seems to span the bullet weights from 180-250gr as a top velocity contender and is a powder I've stocked in 8lb units for 30+ years. Right after I bought my rifle there was a fellow set up selling off an estate with lots of powder and bullets. I was able to pick up two sealed lbs. of RE-22 and a box of .30 Nosler 180gr Ballistic Tip bullets for $80.00 OTD, (no .338 bullets).

Awesome, thanks again. That makes sense, now, given what I'm seeing. As I say above I have found both Rel 19 and 22, and bought a pound of 22, but that's just for development. Hugely expensive for my tastes and I won't do it in the future if I can at all help it.

Interesting on the W760 as I just ran across it looking at the 225 (Hdy SP) in the Hogdon manual. I also saw Hogdon Hybrid 100V there, and have seen that elsewhere too, including Barnes's own data for its 250.

Yeah, I can easily see spending 5X what I spent on the rifle just experimenting around all these powders and bullets alone.

[LeonardC]

Spending $! If you still have ? on Barnes Bullets, drop them a line. When I started buying bullets for my .375R project the only ones I could find locally were Barnes TTSX 250. Barnes didn't show data for them so I sent them an email. Got a very nice reply and some pointers. By the time I got back to the store they were all gone. I moved on to the CX bullets, but thank you Barnes!

[Bigslug]

A couple things to add with regards to the Barnes; They mushroom out into four petals, so they're kind of like an archery broadhead in that, while there is a little of both, they tend to cut more than crush. Since those petals tend to keep the frontal surface area down, and since they don't ablate away their weight like a lead core jacketed slug, they penetrate above their weight class. You can drop down a little from the weights conventional wisdom would tell you are necessary for copper/lead, pick up some speed, and flatten out your trajectory a little.

The 185 grain TTSX in front of H414 looks quite promising.

[huntinlever]

A couple things to add with regards to the Barnes; They mushroom out into four petals, so they're kind of like an archery broadhead in that, while there is a little of both, they tend to cut more than crush. Since those petals tend to keep the frontal surface area down, and since they don't ablate away their weight like a lead core jacketed slug, they penetrate above their weight class. You can drop down a little from the weights conventional wisdom would tell you are necessary for copper/lead, pick up some speed, and flatten out your trajectory a little.

The 185 grain TTSX in front of H414 looks quite promising.

Fantastic, thanks, that's great info to learn. Guess I've gone a tad overboard with the 250's then. I'm looking forward to learning more about this.

[huntinlever]

Spending $! If you still have ? on Barnes Bullets, drop them a line. When I started buying bullets for my .375R project the only ones I could find locally were Barnes TTSX 250. Barnes didn't show data for them so I sent them an email. Got a very nice reply and some pointers. By the time I got back to the store they were all gone. I moved on to the CX bullets, but thank you Barnes!

Thanks, will do.

[RugerFan]

After much load development for my Ruger M77 .338 Win mag, I settled on Barnes 225 gn TTSX with 65.4 gns of REL 17 (I recall the burn rate was very 4350 like). Used it to take Sitka Blacktails on Kodiak Island a few years ago.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro

[huntinlever]

After much load development for my Ruger M77 .338 Win mag, I settled on Barnes 225 gn TTSX with 65.4 gns of REL 17 (I recall the burn rate was very 4350 like). Used it to take Sitka Blacktails on Kodiak Island a few years ago.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro

Great info, thanks. I've got some Interlocks in both 225 and 250 coming. Still trying to decide between:

- the Speer 200 Hot Cor (over 60 grains IMR 4895), for lower velocity (around 2550 fps);
-225 Interlock. Using 225 Speer BTSP for now for range development and practice, but the Interlocks arrive tomorrow. Looking at Reloder 22, up to 2650, or IMR 4831, same range; or

-Barnes 250 TSX, with either H4831 or I4831.

I know the 200 is perfectly adequate for northern whitetails, but have always liked heavier, slower bullets. The 225 and 250 is more for seeing what it's like in the field, for our planned later western hunt.

Sitka on Kodiak. Wow. That has to have been an incredible experience, congratulations. I just watched Steve Rinella's early episode on this, for Meateater. Unforgettable.

[huntinlever]

For a deer load: Forgetting "overkill." Just looked at a Temperature Sensitivity chart. Seems the best match for the 225 grains, with accuracy and temp. sensitivity taken into account, is the H 4831 SC. If I stay with 225's, unfortunately I think I'll be seeing some powders collecting dust.

The 200 Hot Cor's are still in the running though, with I 3031 and H 4895 being top contenders for lower velocity (though the above-mentioned load of IMR 4895, 60 grains, and the 200 Speer Hot Cor seems great, and I'll try it).